Lionel Richie was honored recently by the cable channel TV Land. Their annual Icon awards salute entertainers with longevity in the industry. Richie, whose daughter is reformed badgirl socialite and new mom Nicole Richie, made a little joke about what he says is the toughest job in the world: being a dad. Specifically, Nicole’s dad.

Grammy winner Lionel Richie was honored this weekend with an Icon trophy at the TV Land Awards, while accepting his award, the Oscar winner joked to the crowd about being Nicole Richie’s father.

“Forget about surviving 40 years in the music business. Just surviving 27 years of Nicole Richie has been a struggle and a half, I want to tell you. I stand here as a survivor, I want you to know, for all parents out there.”

Richie also added that since Nicole became a mommy she has become a different person,

“She went from Dad, I don’t care. Whatever you say, to ‘wash your hands, dad.’”

I’m not a fan of Lionel’s music post-Commodores, but after seeing him with Nicole on “Oprah” a few years back, I like their relationship a lot. Nicole acknowledges that she was a wild-child hellian, and Lionel admits that he wasn’t always there for his daughter due to his career. They seem very close these days, and in every photo I’ve seen of Lionel with his new granddaughter he seems to be bursting with pride. It’s great that they can laugh about those tough times now.

Nicole, Lionel and Sophia Richie are shown at the ASCAP awards on 4/9/08, thanks to WENN.

Nicole’s biological parents were from Oakland. Ca and were acquaintances of Ritchie and his first wife’s. They were very poor and basically unable to take care of Nicole and asked the Ritchies to adopt her.

I think it’s obvious now that even though he feels he wasn’t able to be there for his child, he clearly took the time to teach/instill something. Any girl who can be BFF with Paris for most of her life, and still emerge pretty normal, had to have had some kind of moral/sane foundation laid, even if she did ignore it for 10 years.

Thanks Lionel for the lovely gift of foisting your daughter onto the collective media consciousness of the country and the world. Maybe one day we’ll meet and I’ll show my appreciation in ways words fail to convey.